Who Is Behind the Violence in Northern Nigeria?

By Steven Kefas

Nigeria is often portrayed in international headlines as simply “unstable,” a sweeping, unhelpful label that conceals a far more complex and geographically specific crisis. For those seeking to understand the country’s security situation, the details matter enormously. Over the past ten years, I have conducted extensive field research across Nigeria with a particular focus on the north, carrying out on-the-ground interviews with victim communities, local leaders, survivors, and witnesses. What I found challenges vague narratives and points to identifiable actors perpetrating the majority of violence in two critical regions: the Northwest and the North Central.

Systematic data gathered by the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa (ORFA) consistently records a significant proportion of Christian victims even in predominantly Muslim northwestern states, evidence that the violence carries a dimension that purely ethnic or economic explanations cannot fully account for. This piece argues that the crisis is best understood as ethno-religious in character: rooted in ethnic identity, but inflected with religious targeting that demands honest acknowledgment.

The Northwest: Bandits, or Something More?

In Nigeria’s Northwest comprising states such as Zamfara, Katsina, Sokoto, Kebbi, and Kaduna, the dominant perpetrators of mass violence are armed groups widely referred to as “bandits.” This label, while useful as shorthand, does not fully capture the sophistication, the ethnic profile, or the religious dimensions of these actors.

After conducting field interviews across victim communities in this zone over ten years, my research found that at least 95% of the perpetrators are of Fulani origin. This finding is broadly consistent with what credible international and Nigerian bodies have documented. Approximately 30,000 Fulani bandits operate in several groups in northwest Nigeria, with individual groups consisting of anywhere from 10 to 1,000 members. These are not loosely organized mobs. They are structured armed networks that have carved out territories, imposed illegal taxation on farming communities, and responded to resistance with lethal force.

This ethnic and religious identification of the bandits was confirmed publicly by one of Nigeria’s most senior political figures. In September 2021, then-Katsina State Governor Aminu Bello Masari, himself a Fulani man made an extraordinary admission on Channels Television’s “Politics Today” programme, stating that the bandits were “the same people like me, who speak the same language like me, who profess the same religious beliefs like me.” He added that “majority of those involved in this banditry are Fulanis, whether it is palatable or not, but that is the truth,” and noted that some fighters had infiltrated from West and North African countries, all of Fulani extraction. His candid acknowledgment effectively confirmed from within Nigeria’s political establishment what field researchers and affected communities had long documented.

What makes these groups particularly alarming is the level of weaponry in their possession. Bandit gangs notably downed a Nigerian Air Force Alpha Jet on 18 July 2021, a stunning demonstration of anti-aircraft capabilities. This is not the profile of ordinary criminals; it is the profile of an insurgent-level armed group[i].

The Religious Dimension in the Northwest

Framing the northwest violence purely as criminality or ethnic predation risks missing an important layer. ORFA data document a disproportionately high number of Christians among the dead in northwestern states, including Kaduna, Katsina, Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, and Kebbi states where Christians are a demographic minority. The targeting pattern is not random. Churches have been burned, Christian farming communities repeatedly selected for raids, and witnesses across multiple communities have reported attackers chanting Allahu Akbar during assaults. This does not make every attack a formally declared religious war, but it does mean that religion functions as a marker of who is targeted and who is spared in many attacks in the region.

The historical memory of the Usman Dan Fodio jihad of the early nineteenth century, which transformed the religious and political landscape of what is now northern Nigeria remains a live current in the identity of sections of the Fulani community. This does not reduce every Fulani herder to a jihadist. But it means the violence should be understood as ethno-religious in character: ethnicity and religion are intertwined as both motivation and method. The term “ethno-religious warfare” captures this more accurately than either “religious warfare” (as practised by Boko Haram and ISWAP) or plain criminality. Minority Christian communities in the Muslim northwest have come under attacks in a manner that suggests they are being targeted. For example, in Faskari LGA of Katsina state, the ORF four-year report shows a significant number of Christians killed. Considering the small population of Christians in the LGA, there is no better explanation to the number killed than being targeted.

Furthermore, the convergence between bandit groups and declared jihadist networks adds an additional dimension to an already dangerous situation. ISWAP and Boko Haram factions  including Ansaru, Mahmuda, and Lakurawa  have claimed attacks in northwest Nigeria, and some bandit groups have reportedly forged alliances with these jihadist organisations.

The economic impact has been devastating regardless of motive. Armed Fulani militant networks have inflicted catastrophic damage on Nigeria’s economy and governance, with deliberate destruction of farms and grain stores triggering soaring food prices and nationwide food insecurity, and millions displaced since the crisis began.

The Middle Belt: Armed Herdsmen and Ethno-Religious Targeting

In Nigeria’s Middle Belt, covering states such as Plateau, Benue, Nasarawa, Taraba, Niger, and Kwara, the picture is similar in terms of perpetrator identity but different in framing. Here, the media refers to armed actors as “Armed Herdsmen” rather than bandits. My field research, spanning ten years of interviews in the Middle Belt, led me to the same conclusion as in the Northwest: over 95% of the perpetrators are of Fulani descent.

Attacks on 23 to 24 December 2023 in Plateau State left at least 200 people dead and more than 500 injured across no fewer than 20 rural communities in Bokkos and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas, were attributed to Fulani militants. Less than two years later, on 14 June 2025, at least 258 Christians were brutally murdered in Yelwata, Benue State, in an attack attributed to armed Fulani militia fighters.

These are not isolated incidents. They form part of a sustained and escalating pattern of violence against settled farming communities, communities that are overwhelmingly Christian, carried out with apparent impunity and, in documented accounts, accompanied by religious invocations.

The Nasarawa Connection

Field research and security reporting have established that some of the most lethal Fulani militant groups operating across the Middle Belt do not simply emerge from within the states they attack. Several armed groups have maintained known encampments in Nasarawa State, using these as staging posts for coordinated raids into Plateau, Benue, Taraba, and other Middle Belt states. This cross-state operational pattern, attackers arriving, killing, and retreating to camps across state line has frustrated local security responses and allowed militant networks to strike with impunity while remaining outside the effective jurisdiction of any single state authority. This is not a local herder dispute; it is a coordinated militant operation with identifiable logistics, known geography, and a command structure that must be addressed at both federal and state levels.

Religious Markers in Middle Belt Attacks

The ethno-religious character of the Middle Belt attacks is well-documented, and the evidence is substantial. Across multiple states and many years of field interviews, survivors and witnesses have consistently reported the following:

Burning of churches. The deliberate targeting and destruction of Christian places of worship has been documented in attacks across Plateau, Benue, Taraba, and Southern Kaduna. In numerous incidents, church buildings are primary targets, not incidental casualties of fighting.

Chants of Allahu Akbar. Multiple survivor testimonies, corroborated by field researchers and documented record attackers chanting “God is Greatest” in Arabic during raids on Christian communities. This is not consistent with violence that has no religious dimension.

Targeting of pastors and their families. Church leaders have been disproportionately killed or abducted in attacks across the Middle Belt. The deliberate elimination of religious leaders signals an intent that goes beyond land and grazing disputes.

These patterns do not mean that every armed Fulani herder is motivated primarily by religion, or that ecological pressures are irrelevant. But when attackers burn churches, announce their actions in religious terms, and single out pastors for killing, the violence has crossed into ethno-religious territory that demands a different analytical and policy response.

Governor Elrufai’s Admission

The identity of the perpetrators responsible for killings in Southern Kaduna was confirmed by the state’s own governor. In December 2016, then-Kaduna State Governor Nasir Elrufai made a public admission that he had identified the killers as Fulani, including foreign Fulani fighters from Cameroon, Niger Republic, Chad, Mali, and Senegal. Rather than pursuing legal accountability, Elrufai disclosed that his government sent emissaries across borders to appeal to these individuals to stop the killings, because he, as governor, was Fulani like them. He stated plainly that he sent people to tell them “there is a new governor who is Fulani like them and has no problem paying compensations for lives lost and he is begging them to stop killing.”

What the World Needs to Understand

The violence in northern Nigeria is not random or faceless. Field research consistently points to identifiable armed groups, predominantly of Fulani origin, operating with sophisticated weapons, organised command structures, cross-state logistics, and ethno-religious motivations that make the label “farmer-herder conflict” dangerously inadequate.

Framing this crisis as mere “ethnic conflict” or “farmer-herder clashes” serves several false purposes: it implies mutual fault between two equal parties, it erases the religious dimension of targeting, and it obscures the organised, predatory, and often one-sided nature of attacks on civilian communities. ORFA data demonstrate clearly that Christians bear a disproportionate share of the killing, not only in the Middle Belt, where this might seem demographically predictable, but in northwestern states where Christians are a distinct minority. That pattern is not an accident of geography; it is evidence of targeting.

For policymakers, aid organisations, and international observers, understanding who the perpetrators are and what drives them is not an exercise in blame. It is a prerequisite for crafting responses that can actually protect lives. The communities I interviewed are not statistics. They are people who have survived raids, buried their dead, seen their churches burned, and are still waiting for meaningful intervention.

This crisis demands a response commensurate with its actual character: ethno-religious violence, prosecuted by organised armed groups, with identifiable actors, documented methods, and a regional geography that crosses state and national borders.

Steven Kefas has conducted field research across northern Nigeria for over ten years. Data referenced from ORFA (Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa) is available at www.orfa.africa . For previous reporting on these communities, see the author’s coverage in www.middlebelttimes.com 

Kaduna’s Broken Compass: Why Zoning Must Travel Beyond Abuja

By Steven Kefas

There is a quiet hypocrisy at the heart of Nigerian democracy, one that the political class has mastered the art of ignoring. We speak grandly of federal character, of inclusion, of ensuring that no region feels permanently shut out of power. We build this principle into party constitutions, into presidential tickets, into the unwritten codes that govern who gets to lead. And yet, when the lens shifts from the national stage to the states, the principle dissolves. Nowhere is this contradiction more glaring than in Kaduna State.

Since the return to civilian rule in 1999, Kaduna State has been governed almost exclusively by political figures from its predominantly Muslim north. This is not an accident of electoral mathematics. It is the product of deliberate choices made within the corridors of the Peoples Democratic Party and, later, the All Progressives Congress, choices that have consistently elevated northern Kaduna at the expense of the state’s Christian-majority south. In a state where the population is almost evenly divided between north and south, between Muslim and Christian, this pattern is not merely a political inconvenience. It is a wound that festers quietly beneath the surface of every election cycle.

The lone, luminous exception came not through the foresight of party leaders, but through the intervention of fate. When President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Governor Namadi Sambo as his Vice President in 2010, the governorship fell almost by accident to Sir Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa, a Christian from southern Kaduna who was then deputy governor to Sambo. Yakowa proved that the fears used to justify exclusion were unfounded. He governed with competence and dignity, won election in his own right in 2011, and built a coalition that crossed religious and regional lines. His victory was historic. The violence that greeted it in parts of the north was a sobering reminder of how deeply the politics of exclusion had poisoned the well.

Then, in December 2012, Yakowa perished in a helicopter crash. Power returned, as if by gravitational pull, to the northern part of the state. The brief window had closed. And in the decade-plus since, neither the PDP nor the APC has shown the political will to revisit what that window revealed: that Kaduna’s south is ready, capable, and deserving of a turn at the helm.

This context matters enormously as Nigeria’s political class turns its attention to the emerging Nigeria Democratic Congress. The NDC has already made a statement of intent by zoning its presidential candidacy to the south, with former Anambra Governor Peter Obi widely tipped as the consensus candidate. It is a credible, principled gesture, one that signals the party understands the logic of inclusion that has undergirded national politics since 1999. But a party that champions inclusion at the top while tolerating exclusion at the state level is not a party of principle. It is a party of convenience.

The question analysts are beginning to ask and that the NDC’s leadership must answer directly is whether the party’s commitment to fairness will cascade downward into the states. Will the NDC, as it builds its structures in Kaduna, demonstrate the courage that the PDP and APC have consistently lacked? Will it zone its governorship ticket to the south of the state, to a zone that has held the position for only a fleeting, grief-cut tenure in over twenty-five years of democracy?

The case for doing so is not merely sentimental. It is strategic. Southern Kaduna carries deep reservoirs of political grievance, grievances born not of imagination but of lived experience. Communities that have endured cycles of violence, displacement, and political marginalisation do not need more promises. They need the concrete, visible proof that democracy means something for them too. A party that offers that proof in Kaduna will not simply win votes. It will build loyalty of a different and more durable kind.

There are those who will argue that zoning is a blunt instrument, that merit should prevail over geography. It is a reasonable objection, and in a mature democracy with a level political field, it would carry great weight. But Nigeria’s political field is not level. It has been tilted, in state after state, by the accumulated weight of incumbent advantage, party gatekeeping, and the quiet veto of those who benefit from the status quo. In such conditions, zoning is not an abandonment of merit. It is the scaffolding that gives merit the chance to be seen.

Nigeria’s democracy turns twenty-seven this year. It has produced much to be proud of: peaceful transfers of power, a vibrant press, citizens increasingly willing to hold leaders accountable. But it has also produced stubborn patterns of exclusion that no amount of constitutional rhetoric has dislodged. If the NDC is to represent something genuinely new and not merely a reshuffling of old political elites under a fresh banner it must be willing to do in the states what it is doing at the centre.

Patrick Yakowa did not govern Kaduna as a southern Christian. He governed it as a Kaduna man, and the state was better for it. His story is both an argument and an invitation, an argument that inclusion works, and an invitation to every political party with the courage to take it seriously. The NDC now stands at that threshold. What it decides about Kaduna and about states like it across the federation will tell us whether it has truly read the lesson that Nigeria’s history has been trying, with such patience, to teach.

Beyond its own electoral fortunes, the NDC has an opportunity that few parties in Nigeria’s history have been handed: to become a model. The PDP governed for sixteen years and entrenched the very imbalances it once promised to dismantle especialli at state levels. The APC rode to power on the language of change and proceeded, in state after state, to replicate the exclusions it had condemned. If the NDC is serious about being different, let it demonstrate that seriousness not only in its presidential ticket but in every senatorial zone, and governorship race it contests. Let it be the party that other parties are embarrassed to ignore, the standard against which Nigerian voters begin to measure political seriousness. Equity and fairness should not be the NDC’s campaign slogan. They should be its operating system.

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Captivity by Creed: The Religious Sorting System Nobody Talks About

…Inside the two-tier captivity system of Fulani ethnic militias — where faith determines who suffers, how much a life is worth, and whether a hostage comes home at all.

By Steven Kefas

May 2026

The terrorists conveniently called bandits by the media had a rule. They stated it plainly, in the open, in front of their captives: Fulani people would not be taken. They were brothers. Christians and certain Muslims majorly non-Fulani were fair game. What happened next depended entirely on which category you fell into.

Sunday Cletus was abducted on 28 February 2026, while travelling through Kachia Local Government Area in Kaduna State. What he witnessed and endured over the days that followed was not random cruelty. It was, according to his account and the findings of extensive field research spanning multiple states and multiple years, a system, deliberate, consistent, and organised around two variables: religion and ethnicity.

The differential treatment of Muslim and Christian abductees by Fulani Ethnic Militias (FEM) in Northern Nigeria is among the most under-documented dimensions of a security crisis that has displaced hundreds of thousands and left communities across Kaduna, Plateau, Kogi, and the wider Middle Belt and northwest regions in a state of sustained terror. While public attention has focused on the frequency and geography of attacks, which villages were raided, how many were killed, the testimony of survivors reveals that what happens after capture is equally telling, and equally horrifying.

‘They Are Our Brothers’

The classification begins at the point of abduction. Cletus reported that his captors were explicit: Fulani individuals were not to be targeted because of ethnic solidarity. The instruction was not whispered or implied. It was declared. In that moment of capture, a sorting mechanism was set in motion that would govern every subsequent hour of captivity.

This is not a single camp, a single commander, or a single incident. Field interviews conducted across multiple states over several years return the same account with remarkable consistency: from the moment of capture, Muslim abductees and Christian abductees enter different realities.

“For a Christian in Southern Kaduna, the danger of being kidnapped is compounded by the near certainty of harsher treatment, higher ransom demands, and a meaningfully greater risk of death, not because of anything they have done, but because of their faith.” Says a retired security personnel who spent 4 months in captivity in Southern Kaduna.

Inside the Two-Tier System

Survivor testimonies describe a captivity environment divided into two parallel experiences. Muslim abductees are, in the words of multiple survivors, treated with a degree of restraint. They are generally not subjected to the physical and sexual violence that Christian captives endure as a matter of routine. They receive adequate food. They are permitted relative freedom of movement within the camp. In documented cases, they have been allowed to observe religious obligations. The logic, as captors have articulated it in the presence of Muslim detainees, is one of communal solidarity, a fellow Muslim, however different in ethnicity or background, is assigned a different moral status.

For Christian captives, the experience is of another order entirely. Men are beaten systematically not as punishment for specific behaviour, but as a baseline condition of captivity. Women face the additional horror of sexual violence. Cletus described an environment in which abuse was pervasive, in which captives were entirely at their captors’ mercy, and in which psychological torment was deployed as deliberately as physical violence. Christian abductees are subjected to prolonged uncertainty, repeated threats of execution, and in documented cases, forced to witness violence against fellow captives as a mechanism of coercion and terror.

There are exceptions. Field research has documented cases in which non-Fulani Muslim abductees were also treated harshly, suggesting that ethnicity intersects with religion in complex ways. But the pattern holds across the breadth of the data: faith is the dominant variable.

The Price of Faith: Ransom Asymmetry

The differential does not end with conditions in captivity. It extends into the financial machinery of release. Across field interviews with survivors and families in the north central region and parts of the northwest, a consistent pattern emerges: Muslim abductees are released on comparatively lower ransoms, negotiations are shorter, and in several documented cases, Fulani community intermediaries with informal access to the armed groups have facilitated release with minimal negotiation.

For Christian families, the process is an ordeal of a different kind. Demands are higher. Timelines stretch for weeks. The threat of lethal consequences for delay or non-compliance is more frequently and more credibly invoked. Field interviews document cases in which families gathered and paid the full ransom demand, only to receive no release, followed by escalating demands. In some cases, Christian abductees were killed even after their families complied.

The death that Sunday Cletus described witnessing, a teenage boy executed because his family did not initiate negotiations quickly enough is not an aberration. It is an example of a broader operational logic in which a Christian life is assigned a lesser and more conditional value, one that can be cancelled at will.

A Religious Hierarchy of Human Worth

What emerges from years of field testimony is not a picture of chaotic, opportunistic violence. It is a picture of a system, one with internal rules, consistent practices, and an embedded hierarchy. Religion functions as a determinant of fate at every stage of the abduction experience: who gets taken, how they are treated in captivity, on what terms they may be released, and whether they survive.

This pattern is consistent across multiple states, multiple armed groups, and multiple years of survivor testimony. It is not incidental variation between individual captors. It is, as the evidence compels us to describe it, a religious hierarchy of human worth embedded in the operational logic of Fulani Ethnic Militias.

The implications reach beyond security analysis. The same sorting mechanism documented in community attacks where Muslim members of mixed villages are spared while their Christian neighbours are killed is replicated and deepened inside the captivity system itself. Faith does not merely determine who is attacked. It determines what they endure, how much their life is worth in negotiation, and whether they return.

The Reckoning

Sunday Cletus came home. Many do not. His testimony, set against the accumulated weight of survivor accounts gathered across the region over years, forces a confrontation with a dimension of Northern Nigeria’s security crisis that policy discussions have consistently failed to address with adequate seriousness.

The violence is not indiscriminate. The suffering is not evenly distributed. And the religious character of the crisis does not begin and end with the moment of attack. It permeates the entire machinery, the raid, the abduction, the camp, the negotiation, the release, or the execution. Until that reality is named plainly and confronted directly, the communities living under it will continue to bear its weight largely alone.

…Steven Kefas is an investigative journalist, Senior Research Analyst at the Observatory for Religious Freedom in Africa, and Publisher of Middle Belt Times. He has documented religious persecution, terrorism and forced displacement in Nigeria’s Middle Belt for over decade

Middle Belt Concern Issues Global SOS: Remove Nigeria’s NSA, Stop the Killings, or Face a Regional Catastrophe

By Steven Kefas

(Abuja, Nigeria), They came during Palm Sunday. They came during Easter. As Christian families gathered in prayer across Nigeria’s Middle Belt, armed men descended on their villages, burning homes, raping women, killing children, and driving entire communities into the bush. These were not random acts of chaos. They were calculated, coordinated, and chillingly timed.

Now, a coalition of more than eighty civil society organisations has decided that silence is no longer an option. On April 24, 2026, Middle Belt Concern launched an urgent international petition, calling on the United Nations, the African Union, ECOWAS, the European Parliament, and the governments of the United States, United Kingdom, and other democratic nations to intervene in what it formally describes as an ongoing genocide against predominantly Christian farming communities in Nigeria’s heartland.

The ten-page petition titled Stop the Genocide in Nigeria’s Middle Belt & Avert a Looming Refugee Crisis in West Africa  is both a cry for help and a damning indictment of a government that, the coalition alleges, has watched, wavered, and in some cases, enabled the carnage.

The Middle Belt is no peripheral region. Stretching across states including Benue, Kaduna, and Nasarawa, it is home to over 50 million people, representing more than 400 indigenous ethnic nationalities. It is also Nigeria’s primary food-producing zone, the breadbasket of Africa’s most populous nation. For years, its farming communities have suffered relentless attacks by Islamist terrorist groups and armed Fulani militia. Villages reduced to ash. Harvests abandoned. Generations of indigenous life erased.

The numbers are staggering. Millions have been forcibly displaced. Entire communities that have farmed the same land for centuries now live as refugees within their own country, sheltering in camps or cramped urban fringes while strangers occupy their ancestral homelands.

And yet, according to Middle Belt Concern, the Nigerian government’s response has not been protection, it has been paralysis, at best, and complicity, at worst.

At the heart of the coalition’s fury is Nigeria’s Office of the National Security Adviser (ONSA), the body that coordinates the country’s intelligence and security architecture. The coalition alleges that ONSA has presided over decades of catastrophic intelligence failures, selective law enforcement, and a disturbing pattern of preferential treatment toward the very perpetrators of these attacks.

Most alarming is the characterisation by the current National Security Adviser of violent terrorists as “brothers who want peace” , a description the coalition calls not only tone-deaf, but deeply revealing of bias at the highest levels of Nigeria’s security leadership. This is the same office, Middle Belt Concern notes, that has championed the country’s Disarmament, Demobilisation, Rehabilitation and Reintegration (DDRR) programme — a policy that offers rehabilitation packages to so-called “repentant terrorists” while their victims remain landless, traumatised, and without justice.

The coalition is also raising urgent alarm about mining activities continuing in conflict zones where indigenous populations have been violently expelled. These operations, they argue, are not incidental to the violence, they are incentivising it. Terror, in this reading, has become a business model for land seizure, and the Nigerian state, through its inaction, is a silent partner.

The consequences of continued inaction, the coalition warns, will not be contained within Nigeria’s borders. As Africa’s largest country by population, Nigeria’s instability has a gravitational pull on the entire sub-region. A spiralling humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle Belt could trigger mass refugee flows into neighbouring West African states, nations that are already grappling with their own fragile security environments. What begins as a domestic failure of protection could rapidly metastasise into a regional crisis with global ramifications.

Middle Belt Concern is therefore demanding that the international community bring firm diplomatic, legal, and economic pressure to bear on Nigeria, not out of interference, but out of a moral obligation that the post-Holocaust promise of “never again” actually means something.

Their demands are clear: restructure Nigeria’s national security leadership, beginning with the immediate removal of the National Security Adviser; halt all mining in terror-affected regions; ensure the safe return of all displaced persons; deliver reparations to survivors; end the DDRR programme that rewards terrorists; and invite independent international press to document what is happening without reliance on government narratives.

The farms lie fallow. The churches stand burned. The survivors wait.

The world has been given the facts. The only question now is whether it will choose to act before the Middle Belt becomes yet another entry in history’s long, shameful catalogue of genocides the international community watched unfold in real time and did nothing to stop.

To read the full petition or add your voice, visit: https://bit.ly/NigeriaMBCPetition10Apr26

Easter Sunday Massacre, Army’s False Rescue Claims, and a Suspended Lawmaker: Civil Society Breaks Silence on Kaduna’s Descent into Terror

Five worshippers killed. Thirty-eight abducted from two churches. A military rescue claim the families say is a lie. And a lawmaker suspended for daring to speak the truth.

This is Ariko, Kachia Local Government Area, Kaduna State, on Easter Sunday, 2026.

On the morning of 5th April, heavily armed terrorists stormed Ariko Community in Awon Ward, attacking the First ECWA Church and the Catholic Church while congregants gathered for one of the most sacred observances on the Christian calendar. When the violence subsided, five people were dead and thirty-eight others had been dragged away into captivity.

What followed was, to many observers, almost as disturbing as the attack itself.

The Nigerian Army issued a widely circulated statement claiming to have rescued 31 of the abducted victims. But the families of those victims say it never happened. As of the time of this publication, all abducted persons remain in the hands of their captors. The Kuturmi Unity Development Association (KUDA), whose president Dr. J.D. Ariko signed a statement on 6th April, said plainly: “Contrary to the reports being circulated, all the abducted persons are still in captivity with their abductors. This clearly invalidates any claim of a successful rescue operation.” KUDA’s Publicity Secretary, Hon. Manasseh Samuel, co-signed the statement.

The families have confirmed they remain in direct contact with the abductors, who have themselves confirmed the victims are in their camps.

In a press statement released on 10th April, the Civil Society for Good Governance and Accountability, a coalition of over thirty human rights and community organisations, described the Army’s statement as propaganda, saying it revealed “unfortunate efforts at deception rather than a plausible effort at the rescue of the abducted.”

But for the civil society coalition, the Army’s false claims are not the whole story. They point to a recognisable pattern. On 18th January 2026, armed bandits abducted 177 worshippers from three churches in Kurmin Wali, Kajuru LGA. The Police and the Kajuru LGA Chairman initially denied the attack entirely. Public outrage eventually forced an acknowledgment. The coalition’s statement is blunt: “The playbook is unchanged: deny, deflect, discredit, then concede only when pressure becomes unbearable.”

The Ariko attack is also not the only active emergency in the region.

On 29th March 2026, Palm Sunday, terrorists killed 13 people in a night raid on Kahir, Aribi Ward, Kagarko LGA, and abducted 28 others. Ransoms of 200 million naira are being demanded. Those 28 remain in captivity. On 31st March, bandits abducted 11 people from Zunturum, also in Kachia LGA, and are demanding 150 million naira and 10 motorcycles for their release. In Maro Kasuwa, Easter Sunday also brought bloodshed: three people were killed and an unconfirmed number abducted.

Kachia LGA Chairman Dr. Manzo Daniel Maigari’s own admission compounds the scale of the crisis. He has acknowledged that 74 communities in Kachia have been deserted due to insecurity, a figure the coalition describes as “a clear indictment of both state and federal governments.”

Yet even as communities are hollowed out by violence, truth-tellers are being punished.

The Honourable Speaker of the Kachia LGA Legislative Council, Hon. Mark Bawa, gave a press interview published in The Punch on 5th April addressing the reality of the Ariko attack. Two days later, the Executive Chairman issued a directive suspending him indefinitely. The suspension letter alleged that the Speaker had “misrepresented the true position on ground” and had failed to attend a meeting with the General Officer Commanding (GOC) of the Army’s 1 Division “to clarify and possibly apologize.” The letter called his conduct “a deliberate attempt to sabotage the efforts of Government.”

The civil society coalition has rejected the suspension in unambiguous terms. “Suspending a lawmaker for speaking about a security incident that affects his own constituents makes him a double victim,” the statement reads. The signatories include legal practitioners, professors, community associations, and advocacy organisations drawn from across southern Kaduna and the Middle Belt.

Their demands are clear: the unconditional reinstatement of Hon. Mark Bawa; the immediate rescue or facilitated release of all abductees across Ariko, Zunturum, Kahir, and Maro Kasuwa; the return of displaced persons from 74 abandoned communities; and full activation of the government’s constitutional obligations under Section 14(2)(b) of the 1999 Constitution.

“These are not numbers,” the statement says. “They are mothers, fathers, children, and grandparents whose safe return must be the single most urgent priority of every security agency in Kaduna State.”

As of press time, not one of the hostages has been returned.

China’s Increasing Control of Africa’s Mineral Resources

By Biliyaminu Suraj

biliyasuraj247@yahoo.com

Nigeria’s Minister for Mines prides himself on his recent re-election as Chairman of the newly formed Africa Minerals Strategy Group, established by African Ministers of Minerals and Mining to foster cooperation among African nations in the development of critical minerals. Minister Alake is a former journalist and close friend of President Tinubu. During Tinubu’s two terms as Governor of Lagos State it was Alake who managed Tinubu’s media as the Governor’s Commissioner for Information and Strategy.

It is this African Minerals Strategy Group that is leading the push for the introduction of the Madini Protocol, a blockchain platform which will be the Trojan Horse for Chinese control of the African minerals sector.

Since becoming Minister for Sold Minerals Development Alake’s primary focus has been on securing large-scale investments and fostering partnerships for local mineral processing. This has led to the development of several lithium processing plants in Nigeria, primarily backed by Chinese investment. Major Chinese companies such as Canmax Technology, Jiuling Lithium, Avatar New Energy, and Asba have announced investment in lithium processing facilities in Nigeria.

Since late 2025, Canmax has aggressively secured lithium ore to feed its expanding processing faciliies. Canmax Technologies is primarily owned and controlled by its founder and chairman, Mr Pei Zhenhua, alongside his wife, Rong Jianfen. Alake claims Canmax is investing US$200M to develop lithium mining operations in Nigeria, in line with Chinese aggressive moves to control African mineral resources and infrastructure such as ports and railways necessary to exploit the mineral reserves.

Chinese megafirm CATL announced plans to increase its stake in Canmax’s lithium subsidiaries. CATL holds approximately 40 percent of the global EV battery market and almost 70 percent of the NCM (Nickel-Cobalt-Manganese) battery market in China. China as a whole processes approximately 65 percent to 80 percent of the world’s lithium. As the dominant player in China, CATL effectively directs a majority of the lithium hydroxide refined within the country toward its own Gigafactories.

Minister Alake has become a frequent and strong advocate for China’s involvement in Nigeria’s minerals and infrastructure development which has been a hallmark of his many trips to China.

As Chairman of the Africa Minerals Strategy Group, Minister Alake has introduced the Madini Protocol, a Chinese backed blockchain-based platform for trading and digital financing. This hi-tech system is not only designed for tracking minerals from extraction to market but also tracking every person involved in the supply chain including local villagers who may be employed at the mine. The system converts unmined mineral reserves into tradable digital tokens.

In other central Asian countries China state-controlled tech companies are rolling out platforms that turn natural resources including water into digital tokens tradable on blockchain-based platforms and for digital financing. The Chinese companies rolling out deals with governments say there is no limit to what they can tokenize and make tradable on their platforms.

The Madini Protocol, made possible through a collaboration between David Chen (Founder of BLCP Capital, now Chairman of GTIF) and Chris Wong (CEO of LifeSite). LifeSite Inc., is fronted as the technology company behind the TokenX platform and the Madini Protocol. The background of Wong’s co-founders in this hi-tech digital software is interesting. Crystal Lee, a co-founder of LifeSite, was Miss California 2013 and runner-up in the Miss America 2014 pageant. YoonJin Chang, also a co-founder of LifeSite was a former Miss Korea runner-up in 2010.

Wong’s long term business associate is David Chen who founded and led Deloitte’s Chinese Services Group in Mexico. Chen’s experience is primarily with food, health, entertainment and real estate industries before moving into global esports and entertainment through FaZe Clan which achieved a valuation of $725 million via a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merger in 2022 only to plunge to a 2026 estimate of $13 million.

Wong and Chen’s Madini Protocol is touted as a vehicle allowing African nations to raise capital via the Africa Mineral Token (AMT). In fact, it is a route for China to capture control of Africa’s mineral resources initially targeting Lithium and Gold. It is promoted by Minister Alake as a means of financing through the digital tokenisation to provide a way for Chinese funding for projects via smart contracts on the blockchain.

The Africa Minerals Strategy Group led by Minister Alake is China’s Trojan Horse to capture control of Africa’s mineral resources through mining infrastructure investment using the Madini Protocol to fund Chinese built and operated ore processing plants. All the while Nigerian officials turn a blind eye to the Chinese sourcing of lithium ore for their Nigerian processing plants from illegal miners, paying protection money to heavily armed militants, bandits and ISIS connected groups controlling increasingly larger areas of Nigeria’s North and Central regions. The extreme insecurity of these areas is a perfect cover for Chinese companies illegally mining who pay terrorists protection money rather than state royalties.

In the Year of the Horse Mines Ministers across Africa, like the people of ancient Troy, may welcome the gift brought to their gates by Minister Alake and his Chinese backed partners only to find it is a Trojan Horse which, once inside the gates, is uncontrollable.

Court of Appeal Reserves Judgment on Elrufai’s Order That Scrapped Friday Work and School Days in Kaduna

By Steven Kefas

A significant legal battle over the constitutional validity of a controversial executive order that effectively eliminated Fridays as a working and school day in Kaduna State moved a step closer to resolution on Wednesday, as the Court of Appeal, Kaduna Division, reserved judgment in the matter of Gloria Mabeiam Ballason v. Governor of Kaduna State and 3 Others, Appeal No: CA/K/104/2023.

The three-man panel, comprising Hon. Justice Onyekachi Aja Otisi, Hon. Justice Abimbola Osarugue Obaseki-Adejumo, and Hon. Justice Sybil Onyeji Nwaka-Gbagi, heard arguments from both sides on 11 March, 2026, before reserving the appeal for judgment.

The case centres on an executive order issued by former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir Ahmad Elrufai, which took effect on 1 December, 2021, reducing the official working and schooling week from five days to four. Under the order, Fridays ceased to be working days for civil servants and school days for pupils across the state. Remarkably, despite El-Rufai’s departure from office, the policy has remained in force to this day, making it over four years since Kaduna residents lost the Friday workday.

Gloria Mabeiam Ballason, a prominent human rights lawyer and the appellant in this matter, argues that the executive order is unconstitutional and has caused measurable harm to workforce productivity, school children’s education, and her own professional legal work. Appearing in person to argue her case, Ballason adopted her filed briefs and urged the appellate court to allow the appeal and set aside the ruling of the lower court, which had previously ruled against her position.

Appearing for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Respondents was Dr. J.A. Kanyip, the Attorney General of Kaduna State, who was accompanied by a legal team including A.A. Aku Esq., S.M. Gamaliel Esq., M.P. Danjuma Esq., and Koni Tauna Esq. The respondents similarly adopted their briefs and urged the court to uphold the lower court’s ruling and dismiss the appeal.

Notably absent was any representation for the Minister of Interior, named as the 4th Respondent in the suit, despite evidence presented to the court confirming that the Minister’s office had been properly served with hearing notices. The court took note of this absence.

Background to the Matter

When Elrufai announced the four-day work week in late 2021, it was one of several sweeping administrative decisions that defined his controversial second term as governor. The order applied to civil servants and public schools across Kaduna State, with Fridays effectively becoming a non-working day. Proponents of the policy argued it could reduce overhead costs for the state government and offer workers an extended rest period. Critics, however, raised immediate alarm about the impact on service delivery, the disruption to children’s schooling calendars, and whether a sitting governor possessed the executive authority to unilaterally restructure the working week without legislative backing.

Ballason’s case strikes at exactly that question of constitutional authority. Her suit contends that an executive order of this scope, one altering the fundamental structure of public employment and public education, exceeds the powers of a state governor acting alone, and that the policy as implemented violates applicable constitutional provisions.

What makes the case particularly striking is its longevity. Elrufai left office in May 2023, and yet his successor’s administration has allowed the four-day order to stand, meaning the policy has now outlasted the man who created it. Workers, schoolchildren, and professionals across Kaduna State continue to operate under an arrangement that was never subjected to legislative debate or public consultation.

With judgment now reserved, the Court of Appeal’s decision will carry far-reaching implications, not only for Kaduna State, but potentially setting a precedent on the limits of gubernatorial executive power across Nigeria’s northern states.

Middle Belt Times will report the judgment as soon as it is delivered.

Southern Kaduna: Three Christian vigilantes detained after helping troops rescue kidnap victim from terrorists

…Community security volunteers held atCID as families demand their release, citing cooperation with military forces

KADUNA– Three Christian vigilante members from Kajim village in Kaura Local Government Area of Kaduna State have been held in Criminal Investigation Department (CID) detention since Monday, 16 February 2026, sparking allegations of religious persecution and raising questions about community security participation in Nigeria’s troubled Middle Belt region.

The detained men – Habila Yaro Umaru (aka ‘Yaro’), Philibus Ninyioh (aka ‘MC Filibus’), and Augustine Tinat (aka ‘Election’) – are volunteer vigilantes who assisted military personnel during an anti-terrorism operation on 13 January 2026. As of Ash Wednesday, 18 February 2026, they remain in custody.

The January 13 Incident

According to a military statement released on 14 January 2026 by Captain Joshua Atu John, Acting Media Information Officer for Joint Task Force Operation Enduring Peace (JTF OPEP), troops from Sector 7 responded to reports of terrorist activity on the Jos-Kaduna road between Manchok and Jankasa.

The military reported that Fulani terrorists had blocked the road, kidnapped several persons including a young woman from Kajim who was allegedly raped. In the ensuing firefight, troops neutralized three individuals and rescued the victim.

Community sources indicate the three vigilante members were part of the joint operation, working alongside military personnel in accordance with established security cooperation protocols in the area.

Allegations of Targeting

Approximately one month after the military operation, community members learned that associates of the neutralized terrorists had submitted a petition to authorities in Kaduna, allegedly facilitated by the state government, seeking action against the vigilante members.

One community contact alleged the petition was coordinated by Ardo Hari, a Fulani migrant from Bauchi now residing in Manchok. Community sources claim Ardo Hari has been previously arrested in connection with attacks, kidnappings, and the abduction and assassination of Catholic priest Rev. Fr. Sylvester Okechukwu on Ash Wednesday, 5 March 2025.

A video circulating on social media allegedly shows Governor Uba Sani standing with Ardo Hari in Manchok on 15 June 2025, with the governor heard saying, “there is no indigene or visitor, Fulanis should feel free to herd their cattle while farmers go about their agricultural activities.”

Pattern of Violence

Community members report escalating security challenges since mid-2025, including:

– Systematic destruction of crops by cattle sent into farmlands

– Multiple cases of rape, abductions, and killings

– A Christmas Day attack on 25 December 2025 that resulted in the death of Istifanus Stephen, a young man from First Baptist Church Kwarga who died attempting to defend a young woman from abduction

Five days after the 13 January incident, a public notice circulated on social media warning of “a planned attack by Fulani youth any moment from this night on Kajim village close to Manchok in Kaura LGA of Kaduna State.” The alleged attack did not materialize.

Timing and International Context

The detention coincides with the US Congress advancing the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act 2026 (HR 7457), which specifically identifies Fulani terrorists and Miyetti Allah in connection with patterns of religious persecution in Nigeria.

Community members question why vigilantes who cooperated with federal military forces are now in detention while alleged terrorist associates remain free. They also note the irony that the immediate past Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Gwabin Musa – now Minister of Defence – hails from Southern Kaduna.

Reports indicate a meeting was held in Manchok on 18 February involving the local chief and alleged members of Miyetti Allah from Jos, though the purpose of this meeting has not been confirmed.

Official Response

As of press time, neither the Kaduna State Government, the Nigeria Police Force, nor military authorities have issued statements regarding the detention of the three vigilante members.

Community members are calling for the immediate release of the detained men, arguing they were fulfilling their lawful duties as community security volunteers in cooperation with federal security forces.

The situation remains developing.

Kaduna Survivors Unite: Coalition Demands Justice for Victims of El-Rufai Era Abuses

A powerful coalition of survivors, victims’ families, and civil society groups has emerged to demand full accountability for alleged human rights violations during the eight-year governorship of Nasir el-Rufai in Kaduna State, vowing “no more impunity, no more silence.”

The Kaduna Victims’ Coalition, comprising community leaders, traditional rulers, academics, lawyers, journalists, and other professionals, issued a press statement on Monday calling for thorough investigations and prosecutions of alleged crimes committed between 2015 and 2023.

At the heart of their demands are high-profile cases that have come to symbolize what the coalition describes as an era of unchecked impunity. Among them is the October 2018 abduction and brutal murder of HRH Dr. Maiwada Raphael Galadima, the Agwam Adara (paramount ruler of the Adara Chiefdom), who was killed despite a ransom payment. The coalition notes that suspects arrested for his murder have yet to be successfully prosecuted, and their whereabouts remain unknown.

Equally prominent is the case of Abubakar Idris, popularly known as Dadiyata, a lecturer at Federal University Dutsenma and social media commentator who was abducted from his Barnawa residence in Kaduna on August 2, 2019. Nearly seven years later, his whereabouts remain unknown. August 2026 will mark the seventh anniversary of his disappearance, triggering a statutory presumption of death under Nigerian law.

The coalition highlighted a controversial tweet posted by Bashir el-Rufai, son of the then-Governor, on December 23, 2019, shortly after Dadiyata’s abduction, which was “widely perceived as gloating over the incident and dismissing calls for his safe return.”

“We speak today as representatives of countless individuals, families, and communities who endured eight years of profound hardship, terror, fear, and loss,” the coalition stated. “These acts bypassed constitutional safeguards and Nigerian law, turning gubernatorial immunity into unchecked impunity.”

The coalition accused the former governor of presiding over “a pattern of indiscriminate actions: arbitrary abductions, persecution of critics, reprisal violence, unlawful demolitions of homes, mass dismissals of workers without due process, forced sackings by employers of perceived opponents, and the displacement of citizens into exile.”

Expressing concern over recent attempts to “reframe this history, portraying Nasir el-Rufai as a champion of due process and human rights,” the coalition insisted that survivors and families continue to seek truth and justice.

“On behalf of ourselves, and in solemn memory of those killed or disappeared who cannot speak, we have a moral and civic duty to bear witness,” the statement read. “Our sole demand is accountability under the rule of law: thorough, independent investigations; prosecutions where evidence warrants; and closure for traumatized victims and families.”

The coalition pledged full cooperation with law enforcement agencies, judicial bodies, and human rights institutions, offering to provide testimonies, evidence, and material assistance to support inquiries.

The statement was accompanied by hashtags #JusticeToElrufai, #JusticeForKadunaVictims, #WhereIsDadiyata, and #AccountabilityNow.

The statement was signed by the following individuals and organizations on behalf of the coalition:

1. Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
2. Audu Maikori, Esq
3. Gloria Ballason, Esq
4. Steven Kefas
5. Luka Binniyat
6. Midat Joseph
7. Segun Onibiyo
8. House of Justice
9. Community Development & Rights Advocacy Foundation
10. Resilient Aid and Dialogue Initiative
11. Southern Kaduna Indigenous Progressive Forum (SKIPFo)
12. Atrocities Watch Africa (AWA)

The coalition’s emergence represents a significant moment in the quest for accountability in Kaduna State, as victims and their families publicly break their silence on alleged abuses that have long remained unaddressed.

ONLY THE FULANI JIHADIST–IMPERIAL AGENDA FEARS A UNITED MIDDLE BELT

Barr. John Apollos Maton
9th February 2026

A REBUTTAL TO A SAD JOKE MASQUERADING AS POLITICAL ANALYSIS

I don’t know who the recent Fulani stooge Cham Faliya Sharon is, but his/her writeup “IS THE CONFUSION OF THE MIDDLE BELT COMING FULL CIRCLE TO BITE THE MIDDLE BELT” is such a ridiculous piece I was ashamed for the writer when it opened with a quote from Thomas Paine. I mean, it takes a special pompous type of clown to not only go through writing this but even have it reshared on public platforms by the Fulani Immigrants Nigeria should be sending packing.

The joke of an article under review is not analysis but performance—an exercise in ideological ventriloquism by a writer who mistakes obedience for insight. It reads like a brief written to order, not a position arrived at through honest inquiry. Like Judas Iscariot, the author appears to have concluded that selling one’s intellectual integrity for proximity to power is a rational transaction. History, however, records such bargains not as cleverness but as cowardice.

We are told, with great theatrical confidence, that the Middle Belt is a confusion: a geographical impossibility, a political contradiction, a manufactured identity sustained by ignorance and manipulation. Yet what is truly confused is an argument that elevates imposed constitutions to divine scripture while dismissing lived history as irrelevant; that treats maps as sacred while treating people as disposable; and that assumes identity must first be approved by dominant blocs before it can exist. This is not reason—it is authoritarian logic wrapped in the language of common sense.

Let us nonetheless grant the author every imaginable concession. Let us ignore, for the moment, the extensive scholarly work of Dr. Bitrus Pogo and numerous historians, sociologists, and political scientists who have rigorously documented the Middle Belt as a historical and political reality. Let us assume—without conceding—that they are wrong. Let us even accept the childish claim that because the phrase “Middle Belt” does not appear verbatim in the 1999 Constitution, the identity itself must therefore be fraudulent. Even under these generous assumptions, the argument collapses completely.

For even if the Middle Belt were nothing more than a political consciousness emerging from shared experiences of marginalization, violence, and exclusion, that alone would make it real. Peoples are not born fully mapped and notarized; they are forged through history, memory, and struggle. And it is precisely this process—now ripening into collective clarity—that terrifies the imperial imagination animating the essay.

FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION ARE NOT GIFTS FROM ANY HEGEMON

At the most elementary level, the argument fails because it assumes identity is something granted rather than asserted. Under Nigeria’s own Constitution, this assumption is indefensible. Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution explicitly guarantees every citizen the right to assemble freely and associate with others for the protection of their interests. Section 39 guarantees freedom of expression, including the right to receive and impart ideas. These provisions are not decorative—they are foundational.

Beyond domestic law, Nigeria is a signatory to binding international instruments that go even further. Article 20 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights affirms the unequivocal right of all peoples to self-determination and to freely pursue their political, economic, and social development. Article 22 reinforces this by recognizing the collective right to development. These are not abstract ideals; they are enforceable norms incorporated into Nigerian law by domestication of the Charter.

At the global level, the principle is even clearer. Common Article 1 of both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) states plainly that all peoples have the right to self-determination and to freely determine their political status. Nowhere in international law is there a requirement that a people must first satisfy the cartographic preferences of their detractors before asserting this right.

The demand that the Middle Belt must “draw a perfect map” before it may exist is therefore not legal reasoning; it is imperial obstruction. Colonial borders across Africa were drawn arbitrarily, yet no one questions their legitimacy on the grounds of incoherence. To suddenly demand mathematical neatness only when marginalized peoples organize themselves is not intellectual rigor—it is selective skepticism deployed as a weapon.

THE MIDDLE BELT POSSESSES ANCESTRAL LAND, HISTORY, AND MEMORY—IT IS NOT A FICTION

While totally excusing the Fulani Immigrants who have made the lives of true natives and real Indigenes of Nigeria a living hell, one of the most dishonest maneuvers in the essay is its deliberate avoidance of ancestry. We are invited to obsess over lines on a map while ignoring the more uncomfortable question of who has lived where, for how long, and under what conditions. The communities commonly described as Middle Belt peoples are not recent arrivals, nor are they abstract categories invented in conference halls. They are indigenous populations rooted in specific territories long before colonial intrusion.

Unlike the Fulani Immigrants who don’t belong in Nigeria, these communities possess traceable genealogies, distinct languages, religious traditions, and systems of governance that predate both British colonial rule and the later Nigerian state. Historical records—from colonial archives to oral histories—document repeated episodes of subjugation, forced incorporation, and indirect rule imposed upon them. To pretend that these histories dissolve simply because a constitution failed to name them explicitly is not ignorance; it is historical vandalism.

International law has long rejected the notion that identity disappears because it is inconvenient to power. The United Nations’ recognition of indigenous peoples worldwide—culminating in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007—affirmed that historical continuity with pre-colonial societies is a valid basis for collective rights, regardless of later political rearrangements. Identity survives conquest; memory survives subjugation.

What unsettles the Fulani and their stooge — the essay’s author is that this memory is now politically articulate. The Middle Belt is not asking to be invented; it is insisting on being recognized on its own terms, not as an appendix to someone else’s empire. And once ancestry and land are acknowledged, violence can no longer be dismissed as “misunderstanding,” nor dispossession reframed as inevitability.

POLITICAL DIVERSITY DOES NOT NEGATE COLLECTIVE EXISTENCE

Perhaps the most intellectually hollow claim advanced is that internal political diversity invalidates Middle Belt identity. By this logic, Nigeria itself—fractured by ethnic, religious, and ideological divisions—should not exist. The argument collapses the moment it is applied consistently.

Political disagreement is not evidence of non-existence; it is evidence of political life. Only caricatures are uniform. Real peoples debate leadership, disagree on strategy, and pursue competing interests while still recognizing shared historical experiences and structural threats. To demand absolute unanimity as the price of recognition is to demand silence, not coherence.
International practice confirms this reality. From Catalonia to Kurdistan, from Quebec to Scotland, political plurality has never been treated as proof that a people does not exist. On the contrary, it is often cited as evidence of democratic maturity. The insistence that the Middle Belt must be perfectly homogeneous before it can claim identity is therefore not a standard—it is a pretext.

What truly disturbs the essay’s author is not contradiction but consolidation. As long as Middle Belt communities were forced to negotiate individually, they could be managed and ignored. A shared political vocabulary changes that balance. Patterns can be named, responsibilities assigned, and demands articulated collectively. That shift, not geography, is the real provocation.

IDENTITY ERASURE AS A CLASSIC IMPERIAL STRATEGY

The structure of the essay follows a script as old as the attempted Immigrant Fulani empire in Nigeria itself. First, deny that the people exist. Next, ridicule their attempts at self-definition. Then, frame their resistance as manipulation by outsiders. Finally, present continued domination as common sense and stability. This pattern has been documented across colonial history, from the Americas to Africa to Asia.

International law evolved precisely to dismantle this logic. The post-World War II order—reflected in the UN Charter’s emphasis on self-determination—was a direct response to the catastrophic consequences of identity denial and imperial domination. The decolonization movements of the twentieth century did not succeed because empires suddenly became benevolent; they succeeded because peoples insisted on naming themselves.

By portraying Middle Belt consciousness as a southern plot or a geographical error, the essay avoids confronting the structural realities of exclusion and violence. Identity erasure here is not accidental; it is instrumental. If a people do not exist, then nothing done to them can be legally or morally framed as injustice.
What the Fulani and author fears, ultimately, is accountability. A people who know who they are can trace how they arrived at their present condition. They can distinguish accident from policy, conflict from campaign. Once that distinction is made, the old excuses collapse, and the Immigrants who have long overstayed their welcome will be evicted.

CONCLUSION: MIDDLE BELT UNITY IS THE THREAT TO FULANI IMPERIALISM, NOT CONFUSION

Strip away the sarcasm, selective geography, and performative concern, and one truth remains unmistakable: a united Middle Belt disrupts long-standing arrangements of Fulani immigrant domination. It replaces silence with memory and fragmentation with demand for what we as a native people are due. It transforms suffering and genocide under the Fulani Islamic Terrorist Jihadists agenda into political clarity, self determination and intolerance for foreign terrorist influence.

The Middle Belt does not require validation from those Fulani invested in its marginalization and destruction. It does not need permission to associate, to name itself, or to pursue its collective interests. Even the fake Nigerian constitutional law made to further Fulani agenda in Nigeria protects this right. African human-rights law affirms it. International law enshrines it.

The joke of an article I was sent and repeatedly asked to consider is therefore not a warning to the Middle Belt but a confession from Fulani and their stooges. It reveals anxiety, not authority—fear, not confidence.

Like with the Fualni’s who through the Genocide of Christians and Indigenes of Nigeria hope to continue the Fodio Caliphate agenda, empires are never threatened by confusion. They are threatened by clarity.

And clarity is precisely what is emerging.